Chicago's merit pay system did not work...new report. Still spreading across nation.

[madfloridian]

Because Arne Duncan from Chicago says it will. Having merit pay for teachers based on how well students do on standardized testing is one of the criteria for getting Arne's money.

From the Washington Post today:

Chicago's teacher performance-based pay didn't work -- new analysis

Education Secretary Arne Duncan and all of his acolytes who are rushing to implement performance-based compensation for teachers might want to take a close look at the preliminary results from a Chicago program with this focus that was initially started when Duncan ran the city school system. Today is the deadline for the second round of the Obama administration’s $4 billion Race to the Top competition, which has states battling each other for federal dollars based on school reforms favored by Duncan, including performance-based pay for teachers. Maryland and the District were entering, though Virginia decided to stay out of the second round.

A study released today by Mathematica Policy Research Inc. shows no evidence that the Chicago Teacher Advancement Program improved student math and reading tests when compared with a group of similar schools that did not use the system, Education Week reported.

Chicago’s program is a version of the national Teacher Advancement Program, or TAP, which was first implemented in Chicago in 2007-08, when Duncan led the schools. The analysis looked at the first two years of a four-year program, which has multiple steps, including increased teacher development, and an incentive payment scheme in which teachers are paid more when their students do better on standardized test scores.

Here is more from the study:

The comparison with similar schools that didn’t use the program revealed no real difference in student scores or in teacher-retention rates among those schools.

So why is it then that the very things that are NOT working in Chicago are being pushed to be done across the nation...like a bulldozer razing any opposition.

We have had good warnings that things were not working in Chicago. Even back in February we learned they were were closing schools without following procedure.

Hundreds of displeased people dressed in red gathered in front of Chicago Public Schools’ headquarters at 4 p.m. on Feb. 10 to protest a recent announcement of plans to close, consolidate and phase out several public schools. The crowd was composed mostly of teachers, union workers, upset parents and a few students.
Protestors said they wore red to demonstrate their anger about the proposed plans.

....“They are closing schools without following procedure,” said Caryn Block, who has taught at Haugan Elementary School for the past 21 years. “They are doing this without any thought. They are hurting children, teachers and communities.”

Susan Ohanian at Huffington Post had a lot to say about that time as well.

Meritocracy

Likewise, Washington school policy works for the privatizers, and Obama/Duncan appease and promote those in charge. School policy is informed and ruled by predators: children and teachers are the prey.

Up to now, it has worked in Chicago, with hardly a whimper of protest, and now Duncan is charged with spreading the Chicago Plan across the nation. The only light in a very dark tunnel is that in the last few weeks, Chicagoans have come out in massive protest at each of the Chicago Public Schools Potemkin hearings on scheduled 2010 school closings under the Daley business consortium plan. Most people don't know about these protests because Substance News, the Chicago-based education newspaper of the resistance, is the only medium reporting on it.

Substance has attended all 14 hearings, documenting the community protests of school closings with news analysis and thousands of photographs. Today, education news in the Chicago Tribune includes the record number of Illinois students taking AP courses, a school lunchroom snafu, and the fact that snow closed the Baltimore County board of education offices. The Sun-Times reported on a plan to strip school councils of the power to pick principals, a school shooting in Tennessee, and the aftermath of one that happened in Chicago three weeks ago. They have not reported on the community protests. Not today. Not any day.

I live in Vermont. Why do I care about Chicago? For the same reason everybody else should: your schools will be next. What the Chicago media--and your local media -- choose not to cover is shockingly repugnant.

So...the merit pay is Chicago is not working. Maybe it's time to stop and assess the attack on public education before it is too late.

And maybe just maybe someone needs to remind Dear Arne that awarding merit pay just plain doesn't work when when cognitive skill levels kick in.

In fact the study shows that as long as the task involved only mechanical skills, bonuses worked as expected.

But once the task called for even rudimentary cognitive skills, a "larger reward led to poorer performance."

That study wasn't done about education, but it points out the obvious. The DOE led by Arne Duncan appears to be trying to reduce schools and learning to a mechanical, rote level.

[NJmaverick]

1. It's critical that the study qualifier is included

Quote: “We’re still in the early phases of the study. In the coming years, we’ll be collecting data on an expanded set of schools,” said Steven Glazerman, lead author of the study and a senior researcher at Mathematica. “As we review these early results, we should keep in mind that this is preliminary evidence and doesn’t reflect the long-term, steady-state impacts of TAP.”

http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/Newsroom/Releases/2010/TAP_5_10.asp

[joeybee12]

6. So, prelimary says not working, but long-term, can't tell yet, but let's

still push it through, right?

[NJmaverick]

7. More like major qualifiers like these should be reported when talking about the study

facts matter and having all the information is critical

[Jakes Progress]

12. Early studies show that republican presidents

are full of shit. But let's just give them more time. Maybe if bush had had more time everything would be better. I guess we better stop complaining about george without benefit of twenty more years of study.

Look anyone who has ever worked in education could tell you why this won't work.

[proud2BlibKansan]

14. A+

[Starry Messenger]

15. I'm adding a gold star to Proud's A+

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[madfloridian]

21. What an insulting thing to say. Can't you make a point without rude remarks?

[wtmusic]

25. AFT President: "Students in the majority of TAP schools have demonstrated strong gains".

"The Chicago Teacher Advancement Program is an effort of the teachers’ union and other district partners to attract highly qualified teachers to the schools that need them most, and keep them
there. Teachers assume additional responsibilities with extra pay and support, and are eligible for bonuses based on classroom observations and students’ academic growth schoolwide. Students
in the majority of TAP schools have demonstrated strong gains.unions have called for common, rigorous standards to help more children reach higher levels of achievement. They’ve been silent as we’ve pushed for high-quality early education programs for at-risk children. And, when we have called for a laser-like focus on turning around low-performing schools, they’ve held out sticks,
never carrots. "

http://www.uft.org/news/issues/ny_times/UFT_WMM_Apr09_v2.pdf

[donco6]

27. That quote is from Sept of 2009.

How could she have made such a conclusion when the *preliminary* results are just being released?

[wtmusic]

33. Because TAP was already 10 years old when she made the comment. nt

[madfloridian]

30. Randi now stands beside Michelle Rhee and the others...

who are allowing corporations to pay merit pay bonuses for teachers. The foundations have already threatened to take back their money if Rhee is not kept on.


Washington Teachers Union President George Parker and DC Schools Chief Michelle Rhee announced a tentative agreement this week. Flanked by Mayor Adrian Fenty and AFT President Randi Weingarten, the two lined up behind a deal that would institute a privately funded merit pay plan while continuing to whittle away at teacher job security. Photo: Washington Teachers Union.

Corporately funded merit pay for teachers...another path to private management of public schools.

"After nearly three years without a contract, Washington Teachers Union President George Parker and DC Schools Chief Michelle Rhee announced a tentative agreement this week. Flanked by Mayor Adrian Fenty and AFT President Randi Weingarten, the two lined up behind a privately-funded agreement that would institute merit pay while continuing to whittle away at teacher job security. The agreement is sure to receive scrutiny from teachers and city council. The council’s financial officer has yet to approve the newfangled funding mechanism, which draws on foundation money.

..."Contract talks stalled, but Rhee’s slash-and-burn agenda didn’t. She resurrected an obscure district law to put hundreds of teachers (including outspoken critics) on 90-day evaluation plans, which led to an untold number of terminations. Last fall, she used the district’s emergency powers to pursue a “reduction in force.” She fired 266 more teachers in a move that drew the ire of students—who walked out of several schools in protest—and a rebuke from City Council President Vincent Gray, who brought her before the council to explain the firings."

Randi taught at the Broad Scholarship Academy. She shares those corporate values about education.

She let a lot of teachers down.

[Starry Messenger]

31. Tragic.

I had a feeling that was coming.

[wtmusic]

34. Tell me, just what is a corporate value?

Insistence on quality? I guess I share her values too.

Maybe hundreds of teachers needed to be put on 90-day evaluation plans. Maybe many needed to be terminated.

In case you haven't noticed, American public education sucks, and the teachers' unions haven't been doing jack to help the situation.

[madfloridian]

36. Profit.

[wtmusic]

37. Who is profiting, the school districts, or the teachers?

Maybe both sides share some corporate values.

[madfloridian]

41. The EMOs and CMOs

The public schools are having money taken from them to fund the private and charter school enterprises.

[wtmusic]

47. What about the public schools which are adopting TAP?

A lot of foundations are donating money. Where's the profit motive there?

Is giving things away also a "corporate value"?

[JDPriestly]

61. I disagree with you, wtmusic.

What sucks is American parents and the lack of decent American pre-school education for kids ages 3-6. My children started school in European schools.

Free half-day kindergarten starting at age three with excellent, well-trained professional teachers in public schools.

And then, the same teacher taught them from the first through the fourth grades. No one expected all children to excel in academic subjects. Those who didn't were given the alternatives of apprenticeship plus some academic study during what we consider the high school years, a business education which was moderately demanding or college preparation. That system worked really well.

In kindergarten the children learned to be orderly, to put things away after using them, simple crafts skills, no reading until age six, just listening to stories and telling stories based on pictures. Lots of music.

In first through fourth grades, the children were expected to complete homework assignments EVERY DAY. PARENTS HAD TO SIGN THEIR NAME TO INDICATE THAT THEY HAD REVIEWED THE COMPLETED HOMEWORK. The homework had to be neat or else.

Can you imagine how American parents would react if their children were required to do written homework every day starting in the first grade -- and if they PARENTS HAD TO SIGN OFF ON IT?

Why don't our schools work? Because we do not require parents to assist in teaching their own children. Children learn best one on one. Parents should be doing more to make sure their children are learning.

[donco6]

28. The point of implementing something new is to see positive growth.

So if you don't see growth, it's logical to conclude it doesn't work. Like a placebo. In fact, TAP is exactly like a placebo. It does nothing, but makes people happy.

[wtmusic]

39. There is plenty of positive growth.

OP is cherry-picking preliminary results from one study, and concluding the program doesn't work.

It does.

TAP™ Helps Forest Hill Elementary "LEAP" to New Heights

http://www.tapsystem.org/action/action.taf?page=tapinaction_foresthill

"Minneapolis
When TAP was first proposed by the Minnesota Department of Education, one of the state's local affiliates of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, decided to explore the program given its long history of studying performance pay as the final piece of its professional model. After conducting its own research, the union presented the TAP plan to union stewards, teacher leaders and principals.

As a result, three schools started implementing TAP in the 2004-05 year, and made tremendous progress. At Andersen Open Elementary, which received a 92 percent TAP teacher vote, the number of students scoring proficient on the Basic Skills Test soared from 39 to 62 percent in reading, and 29 to 39 percent in math — after just one year of implementing TAP. TAP is now at work in 16 Minneapolis schools..."

"Columbus
When the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) introduced TAP to Columbus Public Schools, where over 73 percent of the students are economically disadvantaged, the ODE, the district and the Columbus Education Association—a National Education Association (NEA) affiliate—joined together to discuss the program with teachers and administrators. Union President Rhonda Johnson was active in every step of TAP’s development, and regularly visited TAP schools to monitor their progress.

The hard work and preparation paid off. After just one year of TAP, South High School's state rating jumped from "Academic Watch" to "Continuous Improvement" for the 2005-06 year. What's more, South High outperformed similar non-TAP high schools in student achievement gains. On the Ohio Graduation Test, the number of South students scoring proficient or above increased by 1.5 percentage points in reading, but in similar non-TAP high schools the percentage declined by an average of 12 points. In math, South's percent of proficient or above students increased by 9.7 points, whereas similar non-TAP high schools on average made no gains. "

http://www.tapsystem.org/action/action.taf?page=tapinaction_unions

[donco6]

53. Let's look at the real data for Anderson Open Elementary here.

Let's look at Anderson Open Elementary's data since 2004-2005:


2009 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th
Reading 38 17 39 16 22 22
Math 49 22 42 12 34 32

2008
Reading 24 30 19 24 20 31
Math 33 13 8 16 26 29

2007
Reading 42 31 27 31 38 26
Math 33 35 11 42 43 32

2006
Reading 54 46 56 45 41 55
Math 40 36 29 24 11 21

You can see that, in Reading, the scores at almost every level have DECLINED significantly since the implementation of TAP in 04/05. Does this mean TAP caused the scores to drop? It's as logical as your conclusion based on ONE YEAR'S worth of data. It's preposterous to make such a claim. We call that "popcorning" - a school that sees a sudden increase in scores that "pops" them up above the others, only to settle down again in future years. I see nothing in this data that would make me think TAP had a positive impact on their student performance. I would wager a guess, thought that sometime in 2006 they implemented a new mathemetics curriculum which may be making some headway on their scores - which is good.

[proud2BlibKansan]

16. But you know what? Under NCLB, traditional schools don't get more time!

Don't make AYP and you're on the LIST. If any of those schools asked for additional time, they'd be laughed out of the room.

But it's okay to give charters additional time.

This is a graphic example of the inequities charters bring to the table.

[Fire1]

19. And/or double standard. Gotta add my "Outstanding!" to the

above post.

[Dappleganger]

2. Thank goodness Crist vetoed that awful bill in FL.

But as soon as he's gone someone else will push it through.

[truedelphi]

3. Meanwhile the computer manufacturers insist that kids don't even need school

Buildings.

How that would ever work, I don't know.

Tired parent returning home from work to find child hunched over computer, working on math assignments.

Then parent does history of past tasks on computer and finds out that Zach spent six hours on video games, three hours on FaceBook, and a half hour on school.

Of course we need people and buildings for children to be educated. Cognitive skills require those adults who have mastered such to pass their thinking on.

[madfloridian]

4. To those who say "give it time"...I agree. Wait to push it on the nation.

"Why is it, then, that education officials can recognize that reforms take a long time even though they are pushing states to undertake reforms right now that have no research base of success?"

It's like there is a huge push to get the privatization all done while Democrats are in power. I never thought I would see that.

[Spheric]

26. Amen. K&R

Let's not try what has been proven to work (see the dozens of countries that now surpass us in educating their young).

The problem is, in those other countries people aren't getting filthy rich off the process. We need to reinvent the wheel so they can.

[BrklynLiberal]

5. I find myself having no feeling of surprise at this.........

All I can say is..."Where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket????"

[madfloridian]

8. They just don't get it. A quote from another link.

http://gfbrandenburg.wordpress.com/2010/06/01/performance-pay-model-doesnt-work-study-says/

The Education Week article requires paying, so I am quoting from this blog.

"The report also notes that Chicago’s incentive payouts, which were lower than those in other programs nationwide, were not as heavily emphasized as other components, such as professional development. Payouts for teachers under the program averaged $1,100 for those in schools in their first year of implementation and $2,600 for those teachers in schools in their second year of TAP.

Those figures are somewhat lower than the $2,000 and $4,000 per-teacher target set by the district.

It’s possible that the findings will influence the larger field of performance pay, as they are likely to be closely scrutinized by districts hoping to win a cut of funds in the next round of federal grants, said Steven Glazerman, a senior researcher at Mathematica Policy Research, the Princeton, N.J.-based research group that conducted the analysis.

“You have to wonder whether the result would have been different if the payouts had been larger or more meaningfully differentiated,” Mr. Glazerman said."

It is not about the amount of the merit pay bonus. It never was. They don't seem to have a clue that it is about learning and teaching at another level....NOT just monetary.

[blindpig]

9. Bet it's working for the shareholders and that's what matters. n/t

[madfloridian]

10. That's what it's about. Profit for them.

They are calling it "reform", but it is not.

[madrchsod]

11. it`s sad to say that those who have been following....

duncan since he took over the chicago school system have been proven correct.but it`s a hollow feeling knowing that tens of thousands of kids have been short changed by duncan`s policies.

his system is based on a corporate/political model that encourages favoritism,bribery,and out right fraud. he never understood the roots of the problems in chicago and he did`t care. he decided to 'save' the best and brightest and let the others rot in schools that were underfunded and understaffed. we have seen what is the result of his policies and we are seeing the results of his national policies.

bill ayers is right ..we have to take back our schools. we have to demand these children have the opportunity to grow up without fearing their future..........

[Jakes Progress]

13. No one who thinks about this issue for 30 minutes

really thinks this could work. No one who has ever looked at the issue without preconceived bias and with any background would support this.

This is a case of greed leading policy and a matter of the uniformed and inexperienced getting to make the decisions.

[wtmusic]

18. No kidding! Name ONE other profession where people are paid based on their performance!

:silly:

[madfloridian]

20. Oh wait, you missed it.

You missed the part where the teacher is graded on the performance of the student.

No excuses, no holding the student and parents responsible.

That's like if someone graded me on how well others perform when too many factors would not be under my control.

[wtmusic]

24. That's only part of TAP

Career Ladder
The TAP career ladder allows teachers to take on additional professional responsibilities, with increased compensation, without entering an administrative position.

Ongoing, Applied Professional Growth
TAP uses an on-site professional-development system. In addition to the individualized, classroom-based, ongoing coaching and feedback provided by mentor and master teachers, groups of teachers meet in grade- or subject- specific “clusters” several times a week to review data and collaborate.

Instructionally Focused Accountability
The TAP instructional rubrics, or measures, depict a continuum of teacher growth on a variety of topics, such as how effectively a teacher presents content or provides academic feedback to students.

http://www.tapsystem.org/action/action.taf?page=elements

Teacher program promising

DONALDSONVILLE — The Teacher Advancement Program is showing promise in two Ascension Parish public schools, where it was implemented three years ago.

Among its backers are two leading advocates of the program, Supervisor of School Improvement Jennifer Tuttleton and Assistant Superintendent of Schools Patrice Pujol, who will take over as superintendent in July.

TAP is an education reform model that uses strong professional development for teachers, data-driven analysis to find and fix weak spots in student achievement, and pay incentives based on improved student performance.

http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/education/93215434.html

In quite a few situations TAP is working, and working well. Not sure why you want to jump on preliminary results from one study and "throw the baby out with the bathwater". :shrug:

[madfloridian]

29. It is the part my OP is about...merit pay and bonuses.

It has not been proven to work in Chicago. And Arne from Chicago is bribing the whole country to do when states are desperate enough for money to pass bad bills.

It IS the part I am writing about.

[wtmusic]

38. Actually no, it isn't.

Do I need to show you where you discuss the Chicago Teacher Advancement Program in your OP?

[madfloridian]

42. I don't think you read carefully. I think it is time.

I unleashed all my list, but time to update.

Bye.

[wtmusic]

46. Well, if you can't take the heat...!

It's been fun

:hi:

[Fire1]

22. How many are paid based on variables beyond their control?

[boppers]

50. Darn near *everybody* is paid based on variables beyond their control.

Except, of course, people who can claim "the dog ate my homework", and remove themselves from being accountable, and demand better grades, pay, advancement, etc..

That seems pretty rare.

[Jakes Progress]

43. Make you a deal.

Let me make up a pay structure for your trade of profession. Of course we would need to be sure that I know nothing about how your job is done or how it is done well. Then every one of the professional whatever-you-ares could try to meet the standards that I set that have nothing to do with what you are trying to do in your job.

Just love it when people who don't know about something think they can fix it. Hey. Maybe NASA could use me to design rockets. I've seen them in the movies - Star Wars and stuff - so I ought to really be in charge of designing those suckers. I would have to be better at it than the people who did all that studying and working to learn all that astro crap. Sure. Put me in charge.

[wtmusic]

44. You want to be the boss and the employee too.

Wouldn't that be nice.

I'd love to be able to tell my employers (I'm an independent contractor) when I'm doing a good job and when I'm not, unfortunately they tell me. It's always been that way.

Educating children has nothing to do with what you're trying to do in your job? Maybe you're in the wrong job.

:silly:

Yours is a truly bizarre, exceptionalist worldview.

[Jakes Progress]

48. You are really out of your area of expertise.

What has your idea about being employee and boss got to do with me telling you how you will get paid? What a strange reading pattern you have. Have you ever had it diagnosed? There a several professional educators on the board who could help you with that.

My job was educating children. This program has nothing to do with educating children. You don't know that because you don't know anything about the subject. You are one of the instant experts I referred to. With no experience, training, or education you feel you have the right to speak about how people who actually do understand how learning occurs should do their job.

An independent contractor. That explains a lot. Now that is what I call a truly bizarre world. Here you want to tell people how to reform a system you don't understand while you don't even work with the system in your own field.

I'll still make the deal. You tell me what you do. I'll tell you how your pay should go.

(Just a hint about what gives you away for not understanding education. It isn't a for profit business. You can't apply profit motive to a profession that isn't profit oriented. If you think you can, then you are part of the group I discussed that hasn't bothered to really think about it before posting.)

[wtmusic]

49. I see, only teachers have the expertise to know how to pay themselves.

:rofl: Stop it, no really. You're killing me.

No, I don't think you're going to tell me how my "pay should go". There's this little difference - In my little "bizarro" contracting world, I pay 1099s every year which pay your wages. So I guess that kinda makes me and other taxpayers your boss, doesn't it? We should have a little say in how our money is spent educating our kids, shouldn't we?

Now we're getting a little closer to an understanding.

[Jakes Progress]

52. I retired. So I'm not required to teach you anything.

You have a lot to learn, and if my empathy meter were higher I might take pity on your abysmal ignorance and try to explain. Buy your arrogance about your ignorance is just a little too grating.

Just put it this way. Whenever you are in a group and someone asks what is the problem with education in America, raise your hand and say, "I am".

[donco6]

57. Well, then there's the corporate welfare check we give you every year, too.

For the cost of tax-incentives, transportation infrastructure, and all the other federally-funded projects that make big corporate business possible in the US.

I'd say we're about even.

[proud2BlibKansan]

23. You guys are going to get tired of hearing this from me but we need to BLAST it:

Only 20% of teachers nationwide teach a subject that can be tied to a standardized test!!!

Hellllloooo.

Now someone please tell me what we pay the other 80%? How do they get raises?

I'll wait but I ain't holding my breath. :)

[Starry Messenger]

55. I teach ceramics.

I can't wait to see how they're going to try to test that...

[donco6]

58. "I don't like your pot"

You get an F.

(You laugh, but it won't be much different from that, I assure you.)

[Starry Messenger]

62. I can't even imagine.

What a world. I heard there are already a lot of people avoiding going into art education. I don't think this is going to help that any.

[donco6]

64. So many schools have had to cut it.

Art, music, PE, recess. We still have all of them, but the state is coming in next year to help us "plan". You know what that means.

[Nye Bevan]

32. Why in the world should employees who perform well get paid better than the poor performers?

I never heard of such a ridiculous idea!

[madfloridian]

35. Merit pay means the students must perform well...

in the education dog and pony show, even though all the factors of life may be against them.

They must perform well, or the teacher fails.

Just makes so much sense.

I think your sarcasm hits a sour note with those of us who value public education.

[wtmusic]

40. Wrong again.

Merit pay means students must perform better than they have been.

It is recommended that performance awards are allocated according to the following breakdown:

1. 50% Teacher evaluations based on Teaching Skills, Knowledge and Responsibilities Performance Standards
2. 30% Individual classroom achievement growth
3. 20% School-wide achievement growth

http://www.tapsystem.org/action/action.taf?page=pbc

Fully one-half is based on growth - not standards.

What objection do you have to holding teachers accountable for their performance, like every other profession?

[Nye Bevan]

45. At my kids' schools, somehow *everyone* knows who the really good teachers are,

who the not-so-good teachers are, and who the terrible teachers are. And no, it's nothing to do with which teachers get lucky and end up with the smartest students.

Surely it can't be *that* difficult to figure out a way to reward the good teachers?

[reggie the dog]

51. it's easy, if you work in a school in the ghetto

where half the kids have no desire to graduate you get raises less quickly than if you work at a magnet school in which about 100% of the kids want to graduate. So the incentive is to teach at the schools full of "good" students first and to leave the ghetto schools as quickly as possilbe. So by working in a magnet school you get better pay for having an easier job and you get worse pay for having a more difficult job in the guetto. It is all about doing everything to help those who dont need help and to hinder those who need help, in other words it is designed to make inequality WORSE! (trust me I did my student teaching in chicago and most teachers that I knew did not like this system)

[madfloridian]

54. Great points. And the teachers with "good" students...

in schools that don't have to keep problem kids, think they are superior to those of us who work/worked in poorer schools that are public and MUST keep everyone. One academy in our town scores about 100% on all tests. But they just send the ones who have problems back to the public schools.

[donco6]

56. Exactly - *I* get them!

I'm the default school for all these "charter academies" and "Core-Knowledge" whatsits. As soon as they fall out of line with the behaviour standards book that school has, they're back at my door - usually in November after the funding count is already finalized for the year. And they've missed 3 months of school.

[madfloridian]

60. It does much harm to the ego of kids who are bright but not good test takers.

I saw that happen over and over before I retired. One kid had been doing a good job at a magnet school, but they did not allow for a crisis in the family....and he was sent back to public schools. The county knew it, but did not step in. They want the scores from the magnet to up the county ratings.

He was so down emotionally, we had to work hard to give him back any confidence.

[reggie the dog]

65. those that run the school system dont care about emotions

be they emotions of students or teachers, just test scores.....

[proud2BlibKansan]

59. A+

[newtothegame]

63. Aren't we anti-union if we're anti-merit pay? Isn't that the whole point of unions?

To keep the "boss's son" from moving up higher than us?

[JackDragna]

66. I teach seniors in high school, almost exclusively.

How, exactly, will I get merit pay when most of my kids have already taken all of their standardized tests? The idiocy of all of this is astounding. I believe in being judged according to my abilities, but my principal can do that. She might not have some rock-solid, objective standard for doing so, but she knows who the good and bad teachers are based on watching them teach, looking at their lesson plans and observing their day-to-day preparations.

[Jakes Progress]

67. "The idiocy of all of this is astounding."

Best line for this whole thread. People who analyze energy programs and military costs jump willingly and idiotically on the band wagon that has the best catch phrase when it comes to education.

Let's have merit pay for soldiers. We could base it on the number of dead people. Or we could base it on how shiny the triggers are. Or we could base a soldiers pay on how well the people in a village fifty miles away are baking their bread. All would be just as applicable.

Or doctors. How about if only doctors whose patients don't die get paid. If you have a patient with a pimple and you pop it without mortality, you get a raise. If you are dumb enough to take a patient with a brain tumor and he dies, you lose. The best analogy would be if you had a teen age patient with a heart condition fifty pounds overweight. The parents buy him two half-pound cheese burgers and take him bungee jumping. He dies, and as his doctor, you get punished.

The first problem is the matter of fairness. The basis for judging student progress is laughable if it weren't so damaging. These "evaluation" methods were not designed to really determine student achievement. They are designed and promoted for profit and with the specific goal of showing failure. The people who run this want to show failure so that people (like the slower thinkers on this thread) will jump on the "Let's privatize schools" bandwagon. Lots of money to be made there.

The second is the problem of competition in education. When you get teachers who are only after the bucks, children lose.

"The idiocy of all of this is astounding." That could be a tee-shirt.

[JackDragna]

68. If you do make a t-shirt, toss me some bucks.

I'm a teacher. I could use it.